The motor vehicle lock in question is assigned to a motor vehicle door arrangement which comprises at least a motor vehicle door. The expression “motor vehicle door” is to be understood in a broad sense. It includes in particular side doors, back doors, lift gates, trunk lids or engine hoods. Such a motor vehicle door may generally be designed as a sliding door as well.
Crash safety plays an important role for today's motor vehicle locks. It is in particular important that neither crash induced acceleration nor crash induced deformation leads to an accidental and unintended opening of the motor vehicle door which the motor vehicle lock is assigned to. The focus of the present application is to prevent an unintended opening of the motor vehicle door based on crash induced acceleration. In case of an impact, in particular a side impact, the motor vehicle, including the motor vehicle door, is subjected to a very high acceleration. Because the outer door handle comprises an inertial mass which is not rigidly connected to the vehicle door, the outer door handle does not immediately follow the movement of the motor vehicle door which is due to the acceleration stemming from the impact. As a result, a relative movement between the outer door handle and the motor vehicle door is caused, which may correspond to an opening movement of the outer door handle and thereby lead to an unintended opening of the motor vehicle door.
The known motor vehicle lock (US 2011/0181052 A1), which is the starting point for the present invention, is provided with the usual lock elements catch and pawl, wherein the pawl may be deflected into a release position by actuation of a pawl actuation lever.
The known motor vehicle lock also comprises a lock mechanism which may be brought into different functional states such as “unlocked” and “locked” by the user. The pawl may be deflected into its release position by an outer door handle which is connected to the pawl actuation lever if the lock mechanism is in its unlocked state. With the lock mechanism being in its locked state, an actuation of the pawl actuation lever runs free.
To guarantee a high crash safety the known motor vehicle lock comprises a crash element which is a separate component from the pawl actuation lever. By the accelerations which occur during a crash, the crash element moves into a blocking position in which the crash element blocks further actuation of the pawl actuation lever.
One disadvantage of the known motor vehicle lock is the fact that, before the intended blocking of the pawl actuation lever takes place, the crash element has to perform the above noted movement into the blocking position. The necessity of the movement of the crash element before the intended blocking takes place leads to undesirable reaction times of the crash safety function.
Furthermore for the known motor vehicle lock, the constructional design of the drive train between the door handle and the pawl appears to be challenging. This is true as in a crash situation not only the pawl actuation lever, but in fact the whole drive train starting from the door handle to the pawl actuation lever is being locked. In order not to run the risk of an unpredictable breakage of some component in this drive train, i.e. even some component other than the pawl actuation lever, it has to be designed for exceptionally high forces, which in turn leads to high material and production costs.